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Monday, February 12, 2018

Got to love the Olympics. I have been able to stitch an abnormal amount of time while watching/listening to the Olympics. Even before the Olympics I knew a finish was not far off. My Shimmering Mermaid from Mirabilia has been calling my name and I have been giving it a lot of my time.

Here is how it looked this afternoon.

Shimmering Mermaid
18ct Blueberry Delight by Silkweaver
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My goal is to finish by the end of the month, if not sooner and then moving on to another of my older WIPs. My goal of getting long linger WIPs finished this year is working out great so far.

Monday, January 22, 2018

My needle has been smoking to get my first finish of 2018. Even though this month it was a bit of a struggle. I caught the family cold just after Christmas and it really kicked my ass. But I was finally able to put in some solid time and eventually had a finish.

Disney Sampler by StichLine on Etsy
on 32 count Sunshine by Picture this Plus

Then I have some love to one of my WIPs. I was hoping to stick with it till the end but since its on black fabric I find that I can only work on it for a couple weeks before having to move on. I made good progress though

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Season in Chalk - Summer by Hands on Designs & Priscilla
done on 18 count Black

I have now moved on to my QS Lady Bug from Heaven and Earth Designs, design by Ching-Chou Kuik. I am doing it on 18 count Simply Sunshine by Silkweaver or Needleworker's Delight, I can never remember which one.

Wednesday, December 20, 2017

I know it's a tad early for making plans for 2018 but since 2017 wasn't that great in terms of finishes I figure what the heck.

I have decided that 2018 is going to be the year I work on WIP's. I believe I have about 22ish WIPS and even though that doesn't sound like a lot to many stitchers out there, it bothers me. Some of these projects I haven't worked on in almost a year and that makes me sad. I have picked 9 projects that I MUST finish in 2018, when exactly in 2018.....I have no idea but they will be finished (famous last words LOL).

But before we get to 2018 I have one more project I want to finish in 2017, which is Happily Ever After by the Frosted Pumpkin Stitchery, I am currently working on blocks for Nov and Dec at the same time and I hope to be finished at least one of them before Christmas, but I won't hold my breath. I have already started my Christmas vacation so I hope that gives me enough time to have this finish.

I have also decided to take a break from doing SALs next year to help facilitate the 9 finishes and also I just wasn't feeling doing another one right now. I might change my mind about purchasing either Cloudsfactory or Frosted Pumpkin Stitchery's SAL for 2018 I just won't be stitching it in 2018 not until I get some projects done.

I hope to show a recap photo of my finishes for 2017 in another post but I don't want to do that until I finish Happily Every After.

Saturday, September 2, 2017

As much as I enjoy the summer I am really glad that September is here. I find I am in a bit more on a schedule in September (fall in general actually) then I ever am in the summer, especially when it gets super hot.

This afternoon I find myself sitting in my stitchy spot, stitching away on the September block of the Happily Ever After SAL from The Frosted Pumpkin Stitchery enjoying a nice cold beverage binge-watching Outlander episodes in anticipation of the new season starting in a week.

That's another thing I like about the fall, the return of all my shows. I find in the summer there is nothing to watch on TV so instead of stitching I spend more time flipping through channels looking for appropriate background noise instead of actually stitching, which wastes valuable stitching time. I know, I know I should be outside enjoying the weather, and I do I just am not an outside stitcher. I like to spread all my supplies out on the table and I never have enough 'things' to put on top of my papers so they don't fly away when I am outside. As well it never fails my dog starts barking just when I am getting into the groove of stitching, so stitching stays inside and I enjoy outside with either music or a book.

Anyway, back to stitching after I finished the August blog of HEA SAL I opted to work on New Year in the Village by AAN for a couple days. I am working on it on navy fabric which I find is just as difficult as black so I had to turn on every bloody light in my stitching corner to be able to see the holes properly and at one point I had to stitch with a dark green thread so dark green on dark blue wasn't much fun. I gave it a couple days and then moved on.

New Years in the Village - AAN

I have now moved back to the SAL and once that is finished I will give some love to QS Lady Bug from HAED, since it is only stitched with black thread I am hoping to finish a page or 2 before I move on to another WIP. I think I might alternate between the SAL and Lady Bug until I catch up on the SAL.

Another think I want to do in the next few weeks is look over all my WIPS and try to decide what my plan of attack is for the rest of the year. I want more finishes and to make room for some new starts in 2018. One thing I have noticed already is I always seem to forget about the digital patterns I have purchased over the years. I have this great collection of potentially quick stitch designs that I haven't touched since I bought them so I am thinking of randomly picking a few designs and adding them to the pile for next year and the year after to be stitched. Sometimes I get bored with my choices for projects for any given year so it would be nice if I had a little design ready to be picked up at a moments notice to work on and finish. Or at least in a perfect world this would happen LOL.

Sunday, August 27, 2017

After a long and stressful week and a half, but a good stress. I was finally been able to sit down and do some really good stitching.

I was able to finish Aladdin the August block from the Frosted Pumpkin Stitchery here is a photo of the finished block along with June which was Little House on the Prairie which I wasn't able to post before, it's still a terrible photo but oh well.

Aladdin - August Block

Little House - June Block

Then I moved on to Shepherd's Bush Howl, originally it was my train piece, but I am just not feeling stitching on the train with this new job, I am feeling more of the reading vibe. At the end of the day I don't actually sit on the train as long as I used to so I technically don't have as much stitching time as I did before, as well I am racing to the train so some times my seat isn't really conducive to stitching.

It's really sad that it has taken me so long to get back to Howl, I literally worked on it for 36 hours and completed it. But I have to say it is pretty darn cute LOL. I have two more to complete of the Musings that I purchased (I didn't get all 12) but that won't be until next year or so.

Howl Musing by Shepherd's Bush

I have contemplated what to work on next! There are 2 or so projects that are pretty close to being finished if I only gave them the proper time and energy, but one of them I just don't feel like working on so I am not going to force myself. I will continue to work on Happily Ever After as new blocks are released and try and fit in time to work on and finish the Jan, Feb and July blocks, I want to finish off Stoney Creeks June Flower of the Month - Iris which really should only take me a week or so, when I am in the mood and then I decided to also pick up a project that I have only put in about 20 stitches in and add it to my very fluid rotation and give it some love, not sure how long I will work on it since it's on navy blue fabric, at times working on navy is just as bad as working on black fabric. It is New Year in the Village by Alessandra Adelaide Needleworks.

My goal for the rest of the year is to finish off some WIP to make room for new starts in January. I originally hoped to finish 13 projects but since it's almost September and I have only finished 5 I don't think that is going to happen, I think 8 projects is the best I will be able to do.

I also came across an Ukraine designer with beautiful tea cup patterns and some sweet bunny patterns that I really want to stitch for my cousin's kids, I might add them as projects this year which will push back any more finishes I have but I think it would be worth it.

Well thanks for listening and sticking around to see my sporadic blog posts, I am trying to get better.

Sunday, August 20, 2017

I am bound and determine to get some progress done on some projects before fall, I really am.

Here is Frosted Pumpkin Stitchery's Happily Ever After SAL. I don't think I posted progress photos of the previous months so I am doing it now. I had to restart this project in March when I realized I had made a huge mistake, but instead of starting at January I opted to complete the entire border and then just work on the blocks as they were being released and then I would go back and finish the earlier blocks later. So here is March - May. I have completed June but my hoop is in the way of a good photo so when I move my hoop I will take a photo.

March

April

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May

I still need to complete January, February, July and August. I am about 30 stitches away from finishing August so perhaps I will have another post this week when I finish it. I didn't get around to doing the July block since we were knee deep in a heat wave and I had no interest in stitching. My goal is to be completely caught up by the end of September, if the weather cooperates and my stitching mojo sticks around.

Another project I made good progress on is June Flower of the Month pattern from Stoney Creek. I would say I am 75% finished the design and have just recently shifted my q-snaps to get more of the design on the left done. Since the Frosted Pumpkin design is priority right now I don't know when I will get back to this design but it will definitely be before the end of the year, I definitely want to be finished this project before the end of the year.

If all goes according to plan I will have 6 finishes this year.....not the greatest since I picked 10 to finish. I am still hoping I can fit one or two more finishes in before the end of the year. I have 2 small designs and a medium sized one that could potentially get finished, I just have to allow myself to have at least 1 hour of stitching time a night, and with the weather turning coldish and fall just around the corner I can see that happening :)

Well thanks for listening and hopefully I can have another post this week with some more progress.